Genome-wide analysis of Musashi-2 targets reveals novel functions in governing epithelial cell migration

    March 2016 in “ Nucleic Acids Research ”
    Christopher Bennett, Kent Riemondy, Douglas A. Chapnick, Eric Bunker, Xuedong Liu, Scott Kuersten, Rui Yi
    TLDR Musashi-2 limits epithelial cell movement and affects cell growth.
    The study investigated the role of the Musashi-2 (Msi2) RNA-binding protein in epithelial progenitor cells, revealing that Msi2 primarily recognizes mRNA 3'UTRs enriched with UAG motifs. Using HITS-CLIP, RNA-seq, and ribosome profiling, it was found that Msi2 promotes mRNA decay without affecting translation efficiency. Surprisingly, Msi2 targets were mainly involved in cell motility, particularly in focal adhesion and extracellular matrix-receptor interaction, rather than just cell growth and survival. Loss of Msi2 led to increased epithelial cell migration and focal adhesions, while also impairing cell growth. These findings highlighted Msi2's role in restricting epithelial cell migration and provided insights into its molecular mechanisms of target recognition and repression.
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